Social networking fills a particular need: sharing and communicating with friends and colleagues. But what about neighbors? Many of them don't quite qualify as friends, and we may not want to share our most intimate or random thoughts with them, but they are still valuable connections. Nextdoor lets users create or join neighborhood-centered social networks to share event info, babysitter reviews, safety bulletins, and much more. Here's how it works:

Enter your e-mail and physical addresses to check to see if Nextdoor is available in your area. You will either be taken to the page for your neighborhood, invited to create one, or informed that Nextdoor is not yet available in your location.

If your neighborhood is already set up, you just need to enter some additional information and then confirm your residence using a landline phone, a postcard, an invite from a neighbor who has already been verified, or a credit card verification, which costs 1 cent. Setting up a new neighborhood involves a similar verification process and some additional information, though the process is not at all daunting. If Nextdoor is not yet available in your area, you can send the site a message asking to be added.Nextdoor neighborhood social network home page
Rob Lightner/CNET

Once you're set up, you just need to fill out a short profile to let people know who you are and what you're interested in. Feel free to add as much or as little info as you're comfortable sharing. Now you have access to a news feed, map, neighbor listing, recommendation list, and more. It's easy to navigate, familiar to those who have used other social networks, and really handy for folks who want to get more out of the place where they live.